August 6: A wonderful one-day conference Recharge and reconnect in a beautiful setting
Fayette County Park / 9 - 5 / All sessions in outdoor pavilions
We are so very sorry to
have to tell you that
the Try This conference is cancelled due to a big COVID19 spike in Fayette County.
We will be putting much of the
content online. Stay tuned!
Treat yourself to a wonderful day with wonderful people - including the Fayette Countians who created Adventure: Fayette County, above.
... but you can still register at the gate Aug. 6!
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This conference is for you if you ...
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are interested in getting youth involved with healthy activities
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want to prevent depression/ substance misuse in your community
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hope to help grow local healthy-community leadership
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think it's up to us to create a healthier West Virginia!
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Try This was created to network West Virginians who want to make it easier for people in their communities to get healthy food and be active. Healthy food and physical activity lower the risk of obesity and chronic diseases ... and the risk of depression - a major gateway to substance misuse.
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Breakout Sessions and Schedule
Sessions listed by time slots, so you can plan ahead! Dress is informal.
9 - 10 Registration, coffee, networking and tai chi. Please come soon after 9:00 so we don't have a last-minute traffic jam and so you can network!
As you arrive, soft stringband music will be floating in the air. Musicians under a tree create a gentle ambiance that lifts the spirit and lets you know you've arrive someplace special. You'll sign in, maybe get coffee and light refreshments, maybe network a bit, maybe join tai chi in the field and relax into the day before sessions start at 10. Music between sessions will carry you to the next session.
10 to 10:50 AM: Session 1
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The Iceland Model in WV: What is West Virginia learning from Iceland's success? (Pavilion 3): The WVU School of Public Health and The Fayette County Health Department are conducting a pilot study to answer that question, the Integrative Community Engagement (ICE) Collaborative. ICE collaborates with the Fayette Prevention Coalition to bring healthy alternatives year-round to youth and families. This summer, an "Adventure Passport" was given to all Fayette 3rd and 4th graders. Come find out how it works and find out how this kind of collaboration can harness resources, increase volunteerism and help build strong, creative, flexible networks. Katie Johnson directs Fayette County’s ICE project; Sue Wood works with Adventure: Fayette County and directs Adventure Days for youth and their families, which is part of the Fayette Prevention Coalition. Read more about the Iceland model here.
Community Coaching: Growing your ability to help make your town healthier and more prosperous. (Pavilion 9) The WV Community Development Hub specializes in helping people like you acquire skills that help you make positive change in your town. People aren't just born with these skills. Effective organizers learn, study and improve on their skills over the years. In this session, Amanda Workman-Scott, Hub Director of Community Engagement and Stacy Thomas, Community Coaching Program Associate, will give you an overview, and you'll leave with information about steps you could take next. See this Web page for more info.
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A Type 2 Diabetes support group can make all the difference. (Pavilion 2) People with Type 2 diabetes need more than information and medication or a new diet. Studies show that people who have a support group do better! Social worker Linda Stein is a champion of running support groups. Meet with her and members of a recent group to get ideas about how you can start one in your community. Dan Doyle, M.D. (Linda’s husband) will join the session for the medical perspective. Linda Stein and Dan Doyle worked together at New River Health Center in Fayette County for many years. They are now semi-retired and still involved!
Healthy Food: a tool in the fight against substance abuse and diabetes. (Pavilion 8). A healthy diet is a helpful tool in substance abuse recovery and prevention of of obesity, chronic disease, and depression. Food can provide job training for people in recovery. Kanawha County’s Pollen8 program runs a recovery program and Café Appalachia, where people in recovery get culinary training. In Martinsburg, patients at WVU's diabetes clinic get prescriptions for fresh food, then can get free samples and recipes at the clinic's pop-up market, a Try This minigrant project. Logan County’s Grow Appalachia program helps people grow home gardens and collaborates with the SouthWestern Day Recovery Program’s Fresh Start program. Join Cheryl Laws from Café Appalachia, Carla Toolan of the WVU Center for Diabetes and Metabolic Health, and Bea Sias of Grow Appalachia for an idea-packed discussion.
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Speed Networking. (Pavilion 5) This is your session if one of your main goals is to meet people. During the session, you'll switch partners every six minutes - three minutes apiece. That's enough time to tell what you do and what you care about and exchange contact info. You'll meet at least six people during the session, which will be facilitated by Laura Anderson, Try This central West Virginia organizer.
11:00 - 11:50: Session 2
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Planning for healthy economic development. (Pavilion 9) One way or another, development happens, no matter how prosperous your community is. So how can you help steer it in a healthy direction? Come ready to think about your own community! Daniel Eades is part of WVU Extension's first-rate rural economic development team. Amanda Workman is the Director of Community Engagement for the WV Community Development Hub. And Gabe Pena, who will facilitate, is the Resource Coordinator for the Fayette County Commission. A thought-provoking session! Daniel Eades from WVU Extension’s Tourism Development Unit will present state-level information and advice for WV towns. Amanda Workman from the WV Community Development Hub will tell how the Hub's programs can help. Gabriel Peña, Fayette County Commission’s Resource Coordinator, will facilitate. He is also on the Fayetteville Town Council and chairs the New River Health Association Board of Directors.
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Getting and keeping volunteers. (Pavilion 3). Nobody does a better job of working with volunteers than Active Southern WV! In their four-county area, they have done an amazing job of locating people who volunteer each week to lead an activity that will help their community become a healthier place. See https://activeswv.org/community-captains/ for more info. Come to this session for ideas and inspiration for your own community projects. Melanie Seiler is Director of Active Southern WV; Erin Reed directs Active Southern WV's highly successful volunteer program. They will be joined by a community captain or two.
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Get local kids engaged with the outdoors: a model program (Pavilion 2). The outdoor adventure industry is growing fast in WV, but too many West Virginia kids don’t yet participate, while out-off-state tourist kids paddle, climb rocks, hike and enjoy zip lines. Get ideas from an outstanding Fayette County program aimed at getting local WV kids involved with the healthy, exciting opportunities their home state offers, while lowering the risk of substance abuse. It's run through the 4H, so couldn't it go statewide? Aleah Denny directs Fayette County’s 4H Adventure Club, which actually gets high-school students climbing rocks, paddling, hiking, and flying through the trees on zip lines. Cheyenne Wright, a student participant, will join her.
Create a healthy-community coalition for your community. (Pavilion 8). You get the most bang for your efforts if you collaborate. Get ideas from coalitions in different stages of development and contribute your own ideas. Putnam County’s Healthy Alternatives has had big success in getting people out on trails and rivers. The Fayette Prevention Coalition is sponsoring a wide variety of activities, including Adventure Fayette County. The program targets physical activity as one way of involving youth in healthy activities and lowering risk of substance abuse. Presenters include Evan Young, who directs the Healthy Alternatives project for the Putnam Wellness Coalition; Carri Strunk, Fayette Prevention Coalition.
Tai Chi: deal with stress and build community. (Pavilion 4) Ron Wilkerson and WV's Chi Lin tai chi group have trained groups ranging from the Public Employees Insurance Agency to substance abuse recovery programs. He and his team love best to offer programs to the children of West Charleston. "It's all about prevention - of whatever," Wilkerson says. He and his team will tell you how you can build a varied program around one core activity - in their case, tai chi. Then in the afternoon, if you like, you can take part in a big tai chi experience on the green for people with any experience levvel. Ron Wilkerson and other members of the Chi Lin collective will lead this session.
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​​​12:00 - 1:00 Lunch in the big Pavilion 1
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1:10 - 2:00: Session 3
The Never Bored Board and the FunRaiser: A youth-directed / adult-mentored afterschool program. (Pavilion 3). Three years ago, a bunch of Wheeling kids with no parks to play in came up with the idea for the FunRaiser, a panel truck packed with play items that creates regular pop-up play festivals in parts of the city that have no park or playground. The project board is composed of kids and overseen by adults. It works! Come find out how you might incorporate elements of this program in yours. This fun session will be presented by Wheeling kids and their mentor, Gabrielle Marshall, program coordinator.
Fresh Food for Everybody: tools for your project. (Pavilion 9). You’ll leave this session with lots of new ideas! Find out what the WV Department of Agriculture and the WV Food and Farm Coalition have to offer your local gardeners. Hear from a Logan County organizer who has helped hundreds of families grow part of their own food. Find out how the Turnrow Farm Collective makes it possible for small growers to get their food to market. Lacy Davidson, dietician and small business promoter for the Agriculture Department. Sierra Cox, Regional Foodshed Coordinator for WV Food and Farm Coalition; Susanna Wheeler, Director of New Roots Community Farm.
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Teambuilding: the first step (Pavilion 8). How can your team work together most effectively to carry out a successful project? How can you involve people who could help? In a participatory workshop, veteran organizer Stephen Smith will take you through a critical set of questions and actions you can take at the beginning of your project to increase the chances it will succeed and grow. Each minigrant is encouraged to attend this session. Stephen Smith is Co-Chair of West Virginia Can't Wait.
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Mindful physical activity to help kids deal with stress and trauma (Pavilion 4). In 2020-21, 347 elementary school staffers got training in activities and tools that help kids lower stress and counter trauma, in a grant overseen by Try This. Now they’ll share with you! The presenters, including two principals, will describe the impact on their schools and kids and give you activities you can use to help children deal positively with stress, in or out or the classroom. Jenny Harden, principal of Greenbrier County’s Rupert Elementary; Micha Webb, principal of Zion Childcare Center in Charleston.
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Start and expand a youth running program (Pavilion 2). Active Southern WV has had great success is starting numerous youth running groups in numerous southern WV communities. If you'd like to do the same in your area, you'll be glad you spent an hour with Active SWV staff. You couldn't get better advisors. Get step by step directions for what you need to do to ensure success. This session will be facilitated by India Krawczyk, Active Southern WV's Kids Run Club Director.
Session 4: Two roundtable brainstorms: Both in Pavilion 2
How can we - people who hope to help create a healthier West Virginia - involve a larger number of West Virginians? What groups are left out? How can we join hands with low-income people, young people, disabled people, and people of color to create a healthier West Virginia? What models can we offer? This is a chance to collectively come up with good ideas.
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Alternative activities: On the Green! See descriptions below.
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2:10 - 3:30
Roundtable brainstorm: Getting all kinds of people involved. (Pavilion 2) How can the movement for a healthier West Virginia involve the people who need prevention the most? What groups are left out? What steps are being taken to create a more inclusive movement? First up: Charleston's Mountaintop Mentorship Program. As part of their Try This minigrant project, Chi Lin has been combining forces with an ad-hoc youth activity group created by individual citizens in the small town of Marmet. They bring together rural and city kids and black and white kids in enjoyable activities. They do it because there are few (or no) programs available for their kids. They do their best, but need help. They'll tell us what they've been doing and what they need. We'll hear reactions from the WV Prevention Research Center and the WV Center for Active Living about ways to help similar groups all over WV. Then we'll hear from the Bureau for Public Health and from you! So gather your thoughts!
3:40 - 5:00
Roundtable: Getting youth involved in planning their own healthy programs. (Pavilion 2) All the youth programs presenting at the conference are intentionally set up to involve low-income kids and a diversity of races and lifestyles. They are role models for us all, growing future leaders, getting a wide range of kids involved in healthy activities. Some also involve kids in leadership. Come hear from the FUNRaiser and its Never-Bored Board, the Mountaintop Mentorship Program, the 4H Adventure Program and more. The kids and their mentors will talk about what they're doing, and we'll go from there with your ideas. Be ready to join in, with questions, thoughts, and ideas.
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Session 4: Activities in the field: 2:00 to 5:00
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​Enjoy the FunRaiser. Wheeling's FunRaiser truck will be there, with their games and activities spread out. Check it out! The FunRaiser is a panel truck that drives to areas of Wheeling that have no park or playground, to provide instant supervised fun for kids. They will present a session from 1:00 to 2:00 for people who want to know the "how-tos" of the program and it's youth board. Then from 2 to 5, you can have fun with them ... and imagine how you might do a version of this in your community!
Play disc golf / Build a disc golf course. The Park has an 18-hole course you are free to use. The guy who built the course, Andrew Sullivan, will be there in the afternoon to show you how ,if you've never done it. He'll give you a map of the course if you want to play. You can ask him for advice about ways you might plan a course for your school, community, church or whatever. Your chance for a great consult! Disc golf is a low-cost way to get people exercising, once you have land for the course. Come check it out. Andrew Sullivan owns and directs New River Gorge Disc Golf
Tai Chi for anybody: (3:40 - 4:30) Members of the Chi Lin tai chi collective will lead you in easy-to-follow, relaxing tai chi movements. No prior experience necessary! People of any experience level will enjoy participating. Relaxing and uplifting!
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Special activity: Try standup paddle-boarding (SUP)! 2:10 to 4 only. In this afternoon session, 12 people can actually try standup paddleboarding in the park's pond. If you don't try it, you can get advice from Evan Young about starting paddleboarding in your community. First come, first serve to try it. After you register, you get info about how to sign up. If you want to take part in this activity, bring a bathing suit and sign up early! Evan Young oversees the Healthy Alternatives program, the prevention arm of Putnam Wellness. He also owns Appalachian Board Company, which partnered with Healthy Alternatives to get more than 1,000 Putnam Countians out on the water last year.
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Meditative Nature Walk : (2:10-3:10) Join a nature walk and enjoy a restful guided meditation by Mindful WV’s Pamela Santer.
Yoga on the Green. (2:10 - 3:00) Join Nina and Gideon Casto of Charleston's The Folded Leaf yoga studio for a class on the green. No experience necessary, but mats will be limited, so bring your own or enjoy the feeling of grass beneath your toes.
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Go swimming! The Fayette County Park has a nice swimming pool. If you think you might like to take a swim, bring your bathing suit and the admission fee of $4.50. A great way to refresh for the rest of the day!
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Gaga Pit! It's back! Find two or three others and get a game started, and more will come join you.
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DIY: Hula hoops, basketball, soccer, frisbee. Have fun in the field! We'll have the balls and hoops for you.
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